


you're killing me, smalls

by rebellamy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Baseball, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:10:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6944869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebellamy/pseuds/rebellamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So you just like, pretty much broke some kind of legendary baseball record and you’re telling me you care more about finishing the game?” Wells asked, eyebrows furrowed. </p><p>Everyone looked to Bellamy for an answer. He shrugged. </p><p>“Records aren’t what’s important to me, anyways. I don’t care about being a legend. I just wanna play ball.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're killing me, smalls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katebishoop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katebishoop/gifts).



> This is for Michelle because I promised her a The Sandlot-ish AU and I had to deliver. If you guys want to watch a really cheesy movie about friendships and baseball watch The Sandlot. Super super cute, one of my favorites. Enjoy!!  
> (also the title is from the movie!)

The summers Clarke spent in that old run down sandlot with her friends would go down in history as her greatest summers ever spent. 

 

That first year she moved to the little neighborhood of Walden, it had just been her and Wells, sneaking over to each other’s houses in the dead of the night, reading books under blankets with flashlights and quiet voices about how much Clarke missed her dad. Her mom had just gotten remarried to Marcus Kane, and they had moved in with him. She was both happy, because she got to be closer to Wells, but she was kind of sad, because it had only been two years since Jake passed, and it was hard for fifteen year old Clarke. 

 

The next year they get out more often on their bikes, because Wells just got a new one and Clarke is a little less afraid of the world. That’s the summer they stumble on the sandlot, that’s the summer they met the people that would change their lives forever. 

 

Clarke remembers that day well. She’d just turned sixteen, and she was feeling larger than life, riding her bike standing up with eyes squinted shut, her dad’s old long billed hat sitting tight over her unruly golden curls. Wells was laughing, before he shouted her name, and an unidentified flying object came hurtling towards her. 

 

It was a baseball. An incredibly dirty baseball. And it had nearly given Clarke a shiner.A small brunette girl, probably two years younger than them ran up to collect it. 

 

“This yours?” Wells asked, reaching down to scoop the ball up out of the dirt. 

 

“Yeah, well, it’s technically Raven’s. My brother can really make ‘em fly, huh?” She looked excited. 

 

Clarke looked past the girl, and saw an old run down ball field, more red dirt than grass, and the little grass there was that made up the outfield was dying and brown. There were about six other kids scattered across it, squinting in her direction against the harsh light of the sweltering summer sun. 

 

“Wanna come meet the gang?” 

 

Curiously, Wells and Clarke followed after the girl with the frizzy dark braid and freckle speckled cheeks over to where her friends were. 

 

Wells told her on the way over that he knew about the sandlot, that there wasn’t a day with good weather that went by when these kids weren’t out here on the diamond. Clarke admired them for it. 

 

“You moved in with Kane last summer didn’t you, Blondie?” The tall freckled curly boy asked, swinging his wooden bat behind his shoulders and resting his wrists across the ends. He looked like he belonged that way. She wanted to draw him standing like that almost the instant her eyes landed on him. 

 

“Yeah, me and my mom.” 

 

“How come we never saw you ‘round here?” The younger girl, Octavia, she told them, asked. 

 

“She had her reasons,” Wells answered, looking to Clarke for conformations. She just nodded and Octavia shrugged her off. 

 

Clarke couldn’t help but feel like something was starting. And it was. 

 

She got introduced to everyone, and soon fell in love with each of them. 

 

There was Raven Reyes, who had been living here three years with her adopted dad Mr. Sinclair. She had a fiery spirit that never quit and also a really sweet swimming pool in her backyard. 

 

There was Monty Green, who liked robotics and tinkering with erector sets. He was kind, and was a huge fan of hugs. Clarke and Wells received one each right off. 

 

Jasper was quirky. Jasper had a pair of goggles secured on top of his head, though nobody was sure what exactly they were for. He called Raven his “Pyro Pal” for reasons unknown to Clarke, but everyone else snickered when this bit of information was revealed.

 

Nathan Miller was quiet, but Monty assured them he was really great when you got to know him. His dad was a cop, and he was the only one in the group with a car. It was a station wagon and everyone loved to joke on him for it. 

 

John Murphy was the resident asshole, but with good intentions. Raven told them the only reason they were friends was because once she beat him up for talking crap about monty painting his nails, and he grew to respect her and they adopted him as one of their own. 

 

Bellamy Blake was something else entirely. He was seventeen and as charming as they come. His dark curls stuck out from underneath his old faded baseball cap. He didn’t say much about himself, except that he lived breathed and bled baseball. Octavia said her dad, Bellamy’s step dad, went major league before she was born and never really came back. Bellamy didn’t seem to have anything to say about him. 

 

Clarke figured she’d fall in love with him if she wasn’t careful around that smirk he gave at the sight of her Birthday Princess t-shirt Wells had forced her to wear. 

 

“So Princess,” He smirked an annoyingly attractive smirk in her direction “care to play some baseball?”  

 

Clarke and Wells fit in with their group seamlessly after that first day. They scrape together their couch cushion change and buy a couple balls from the drugstore a few blocks over as some kind of symbol that they were part of something now. 

 

Clarke was a very observant person, so she couldn’t help but watch the way each of the group played the game. She noticed Bellamy and Raven the most. 

 

Raven liked playing catcher, so that’s usually where she was. She was an aggressive player, always talking smack to whoever was behind the plate, a marvelous grin shining it’s way through her catcher’s mask. She was probably one of the most competitive people Clarke had met in her whole life. She yelled a lot, partly to keep everyone else in line but mostly because she just liked to yell. She swung the bat with an angry kind of intention that Clarke liked to think was a form of taking out all her pent up aggression. Because Raven Reyes had enough angst to start a revolution. 

 

Bellamy played baseball like most people read a book that they like. It became part of him. He moved like he knew what play would be made five minutes before hand. He swung the bat like he’d done it a million plus times before. Bellamy was made for baseball, and if she didn’t know any better, she’d think that baseball was made for bellamy too. He was a natural, the way his feet knew the path between the bases like Clarke knew the way to the arts store. It was in his heart, it was engraved on all his bones. It seemed like this was all there was, but Clarke knew better. She wanted to know it all. 

 

Everyone else played because it gave them something to do for the summer, because they enjoyed the people and appreciated the game, because they were a part of the sandlot, and the sandlot was a part of them. Bellamy played for that and then some. 

 

She found this out on the hottest day she’d ever lived to see. 

 

“I’m literally going to die. This is it for me, the last thing I’m going to see is this endless field of dirt and Bellamy’s sweaty quarter sleeve shirt,” Jasper groaned, lying on his back staring up at everyone else who towered above him. 

 

“Yeah, Bell, not that I don’t love you’re sweaty shirt, but it’s hotter than Miller’s eyelashes out here,” Monty chimed in, causing Miller to dip his head in embarrassment. “And I don’t say that about many things.” 

 

“Come on guys, one more game,” Bellamy urged them, tossing the ball back and forth between his free hand and his gloved one. “Just one more?” 

 

Everyone groaned collectively, taking their respective places on the field with sluggish apprehension while Bellamy stood behind the plate like a diligent student, bat swung over his shoulder and eyes trained steadily ahead. 

 

“Blake, if you strike out we’re all going to mine for a dip, got it?” Raven proposed, pulling her mask down over her face. “Miller, give him a fast one.” 

 

“You got it, Bird.” 

 

And a fast one was given. But Bellamy never missed. Clarke, who was playing first base, watched as the ball went soaring. It flew almost all the way to the other side of Ms. Indra’s eight foot fence. And nobody ever dared to imagine getting their ball back from there. It was a graveyard, a death sentence for fly balls everywhere. 

 

But the ball stopped short, and Jasper, who was manning second, chased after it as it hit the ground, Bellamy already making his way around the bases. 

 

“Hold up! You guys will want to see this!” Jasper shouted, leaning down slowly to pick up the ball. 

 

The game was brought to a pause, much to Bellamy’s dismay, and everyone ran out to see what all the fuss was about. 

 

“It’s busted,” Murphy observed, taking the ball from Jasper. “Like, honest to God busted. The seam snapped.” 

 

“You’re shitting me,” Miller gasped, leaning over to survey the damage. “That almost never happens.” 

 

“Bell! That’s awesome!” Octavia shouted, shaking her brother’s arm with excitement.”How come you aren’t excited?” 

 

“‘Cause now we can’t play anymore,” he sighed, throwing up his arms. “How are we supposed to finish the game?” 

 

“So you just like, pretty much broke some kind of legendary baseball record and you’re telling me you care more about finishing the game?” Wells asked, eyebrows furrowed. 

 

Everyone looked to Bellamy for an answer. He shrugged. 

 

“Records aren’t what’s important to me, anyways. I don’t care about being a legend. I just wanna play ball.” 

 

After that, CLarke figured she understood him a little better.  

 

With their only ball for the day gone, and the weather being the way that it was, they decided to go along with Raven’s original plan and head over to her place for a swim. 

 

Clarke had yet to go to Raven’s pool in the two and a half weeks she’d been hanging out with them. But It was huge. 

 

Raven’s dad was nice enough to order them a couple pizza’s and a few liters of soda to get them through the afternoon. Clarke was eternally grateful. 

 

It was the first time she’d seen Bellamy without his hat pulled down over his eyes. And also the first time seeing him with a shirt absent. But that was another story for another time. She’d thought he was cute before, but lord help her he was  _ hot _ . 

 

“Like the view, Griffin?” He chuckled at her, shaking out his damp curls as he sat next to her on the edge of the pool. He looked at her with a mischievous smile and a glint in his eyes Clarke could learn to get used to. 

 

“In your dreams,” Clarke fired back, looking out at Monty, Miller, Raven and Wells playing chicken fight in the shallow end. “I think we could take them.” 

 

“I dunno, Monty and Miller are world Chicken Fight champions. They have a trophy and everything. Jasper made it, but still. Their credentials are not to be underestimated.” 

 

They did take them on though, with Clarke trying her damndest to stay atop Bellamy’s shoulders, Monty and Raven doing their best to knock her down. But they were all laughing their asses off. And Murphy ended up swimming through their legs and knocking them all down anyway, so their efforts went to waste. 

 

She was glad she and Wells had found them. She hadn’t really felt like she belonged with people like she belonged with them before. Just as they were a part of the sandlot, they were all parts of each other. 

 

They play ball nearly every day that June. Miller nearly breaks his wrist once diving towards home plate. Jasper took a ball to the groin. Many injuries sustained in battle, but nothing they couldn't laugh about later. 

 

Clarke recalled Raven telling her that Fourth of July games were always her favorite, and the day finally came for Clarke to see for herself why that was so. 

 

All the whole neighborhood was cooking out, and everything smelt like cooked pork and potato salad. The air was hot with the heat of the late summer sun and the warmth of conversation spread across all the streets. 

 

She and her friends gathered around a watermelon, licking the sticky drippings of their hands, some of it rolling down their arms, forgotten. They played a couple quick games after they ate, letting their food settle before running to Raven’s for a dunk in her pool. 

 

It got dark, and they’d all returned to their sandlot. Walden’s fireworks were legendary, she’d heard. She got to see the tail end of them last year, when her mom and Marcus called her out onto the porch to see all the pretty lights in the sky. 

 

Clarke understood what Raven had been talking about now. The fireworks gave off just enough glow and brightness to allow them a night game. Without the blistering heat of the sun beating down on their backs, the game had an easier feel to it. Miller and Monty had already wandered off to watch them together in the outfield, sitting in what was left of the grass, holding hands and staring up at the colorful explosions that blocked out the light of the stars. Clarke caught herself staring up too, instead of paying attention to the game. 

 

Even Bellamy paused his methodic run around the bases to look up in wonder, stopping right beside her. They shared a glance, first at all their friends, at each other, and then at the sky. She let her head loll against his shoulder for a while.  

 

“Bet you’re pretty glad you moved here, huh?” He asked. 

 

“I’m more glad I stumbled across the sandlot,” She said with a smile, leaving him room to return it. Which he did. 

 

Clarke would grow old some day, and she'd never run out of stories to tell about this place and the magic it seemed to have. About Octavia being her big brother’s number one fan, never failing to cheer louder than anyone else. About color coordinating on days they played scrimmage games against another group of kids that called themselves the grounders, and then coining the name The delinquents, for being so reckless in the way they played. About every home run Bellamy blake hit seeming like it could change the world. About Monty and Miller cuddling up outfield and falling asleep, about Murphy playing pranks, about losing ball’s at Indra's, Wells pining for Raven and vise versa. About Clarke falling in love. She couldn't wait to tell them all. 

 

Memories were funny, Clarke had always thought. Because some of them came out a little blurry around the edges, like you might have left them out in the rain overnight. But then there were those memories that would stick with you like a familiar tune staying with you all day, clear enough to hum every line. 

 

One memory she recalls in the second way, was the time Thelonious told Wells he could have everyone stay the night in the tree house. 

 

Clarke remembers feeling a little ridiculous, thinking that their new found friends would think treehouses were childsplay. But her worries were unwarranted, and it turned out to be one of the greatest nights of her life. 

 

The Jaha’s had always been pretty wealthy. Enough so that Wells could afford to get his dream tree house. Which was pretty much the coolest. And even though they were teenagers now, he and Clarke spent a lot of time up there just talking. And or happened to be just big enough to house their new group of friends. 

 

They piled in all the blankets they could manage, carried up every type of fattening snack known to man, and piled inside together, huddled in close with a few lamps turned on for good measure. 

 

They played long games of poker, Raven usually managing to clear all of them out. They told ghost stories and ate s'mores, played truth or dare and even convinced Murphy to let them paint his nails. It was nearly two in the morning before they started dropping like flies. 

 

Everyone but Clarke and Bellamy. 

 

Clarke’s ever growing crush on Bellamy Blake was not going to rest until it killed her, she was certain. Because he’d snuggled in right next to her, arms all exposed in his wafer thin sleepshirt smelling like cheap pine scented shampoo and aftershave. 

 

“How much longer do you bet Wells and Raven are gonna be mooning over each other before one of them caves?” Clarke asked, trying to clear the air of any tension that might be radiating from her. 

 

Bellamy started over at them where they were resting against each other propped up against the wall for a while, before pursing his lips and turning to face Clarke. 

 

“Probably about as long as it's gonna take you to figure out that I’m kind of stupid over you.” 

 

She froze for a while.

 

“You’re being ridiculous,” Clarke snickered, turning away from him to try and brush him off. “That's like- that's like saying I’m stupid over you.” 

 

He furrowed his eyebrow in thought before he spoke again.

 

“A little bird may have told me you think my butt is nice,” he smirked brilliantly at her, causing her to blush. “That watching me play baseball is your personal equivalent to watching porn.” 

 

Clarke buried her face in her hands. “Tell Raven I’m never talking to her again. She can't be trusted.” 

 

“Well obviously she can be. Because she never told you any of the things I’ve said about you.” 

 

She pulled her hands away from her face, listening with intent. “Go on.” 

 

“I think your butt is pretty nice too,” he whispered, earning a sharp elbow to the side. He chuckled at her. “Look, I- I honestly like you. Like I really do. And I know I probably don't really show it often-” 

 

“The diamond is your first love, you can't cheat on your game, I get it,” Clarke teased, nudging his shoulder with hers. 

 

“This kind of thing's just hard for me. I put everything I have into playing the game. It's all I know. Baseball and Octavia. Mom wanted me to take after my stepdad and be some great success. And I do love it, really, but not the way she wants me to, you know? I want to care about something else for a change.”

 

“And I'm an available distraction?” 

 

“No, Clarke it's not- it's not like that I promise,” he stumbled over himself, trying to correct his mistake. “I think you're beautiful. And you're like- wicked smart. You're a hell of a ball player and-”

 

“I'm teasing,” she assured him, smiling as his shoulders relaxed. “It's hard for me too. But not for the same reasons. Mostly because you intimidate me, in a good way. I just really like fitting in with you all and I don't ever want to screw that up. But if you wanna go for it, i'm all in.” 

 

“Bases loaded, Griffin,” he smiled, his forehead roughing hers. “It’s two strikes, one pitch left. Are you swinging?” 

 

“You bet your ass I am.”

 

And she kisses him. It's soft and it's quiet, so they don’t wake their friends, but it makes her heart beat loudly in her ears and heat rush across her skin. It's the part of the memory she's going to remember the most. 

 

That first summer with the people she met in that rundown dirty sandlot would always be her favorite. But the memories they made after that would always hold a special place in her heart, too. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
